When removing the meat of a poultry thigh from a thigh bone, a common practice is to cut the thigh away from the leg and carcass of the bird and to scrape along the length of the thigh bone with a tool to strip the meat from the bone. For example, two or more notched blades can be moved into contact with the meat on the thigh bone with the notches of the blades straddling the bone. The bone is moved along its length through the notches of the blades, and the blades tend to scrape against the bone to pull the meat away from the bone and along the length of the bone until the bone passes completely through the notches of the blades. Examples of this type of meat stripping removal are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,672,000, 4,327,463 and 4,495,675.
One advantage of removing the bones from the meat of poultry is that the bone does not have to be cooked when the meat is cooked, thus saving energy. Further if the bone is removed from the meat prior to cooking, it can be conveniently saved and used for bone meal or related products. Also, the meat can be used without the bone in sandwiches and in other situations where a bone is unacceptable.
A problem with the prior art deboning equipment known to the inventor is that before removing the meat from the thigh bone of poultry products, the thigh bone first must be separated from the leg bone. This requires the carcass to first be removed from a poultry processing line and the carcass thigh separated from the legs and back, and then the thighs to be manually placed on a deboning machine before the deboning operation can be performed.